


Forked

by kinetikatrue



Category: Fairy Tales (trad)
Genre: Multi, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-22 23:10:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/615414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinetikatrue/pseuds/kinetikatrue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Let's just say that very few people (or creatures) were having the days they expected to be having.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forked

**Author's Note:**

  * For [loathlylady](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loathlylady/gifts).



The magic mirror shows a group of seven figures clustered around something lying on the ground. They're wearing pointed caps and carrying pick-axes slung over their shoulders, though they might as well be pocketbooks or hobby-ponies for all the use they're getting - 

and the image shifts: the pick-axes have become some sort of swords and - 

the image shifts again: the figures are suddenly mounted on horses, hands slack on their reins, conveying an entire world of bewilderment through the set of their shoulders - 

and shifts again: the horses are gone again, leaving the lot holding battle-axes and wearing horned - 

and the mirror goes cloudy. 

"Drat!" says the frog, "I knew that bug would cause problems." 

*** 

A moment before, the seven men had been standing in a forest clearing. Now they're kneeling on woven mats, heads bowed. Their swords lay beside them. 

It will be some time before they have a chance to discuss the strange events of the day. 

*** 

Down in the castle garden, there's a lovely tiled pond almost carpeted with giant lily-pads. On the one closest to the middle a young woman sits cross-legged, wearing a silver circlet and long blue dress, but no shoes. If you guessed that she was a princess, you'd be right - somewhat. Today she's a frog princess. Yesterday she was a scullery-maid. Tomorrow she thinks she might just be a granddaughter. She's heard exciting things happen to them. 

It's too bad she wasn't a princess a year ago. She might have found it exciting then. 

*** 

The seven horses take the changes of scene far better than their riders do. 

*** 

In another castle garden, some distance away, a young man dismounts his horse and ties it to a rosebush. Then he enters the castle, climbs the long and winding staircase leading to the highest room in the tallest tower, enters the room - and fails to find the object of his quest. 

Oh, certainly there's a bed, just as everyone had said there would be. There's even evidence that it was occupied until really quite recently. But all that's left of its former occupant is the scent of roses in the air. 

*** 

The cook who was a princess a year ago is standing at the kitchen door, talking to a man holding the reins to a donkey-cart. This is not a particularly exceptional event, as she can often be found dealing with peddlers traveling in just such a manner. They usually don't look quite so enraged nor come bearing quite such an unusual cargo, however. 

The man has been spluttering, wordlessly, for quite some time. Finally he spits out, "This is not a baby!" 

The cook says tartly, "I should think not. It'd never have gotten out." 

She's quite right. The person under discussion is a black-haired woman of medium height, lying perfectly still inside a coffin-like glass box. 

The man, however, does not appreciate her sense. He snaps, "Well, you were supposed to send me the baby!" 

The cook shrugs, completely unconcerned, and tucks a wisp of red hair back under her headscarf. Then she says, "I did. It's hardly my fault if the post made a mess of the delivery. Why, just last week -" 

We'll never know what happened last week. An angry swan cuts her off, rushing the man with the cart and honking agitatedly. The man with the cart displays an excellent instinct for self-preservation and hops up onto the driver's bench, flaps the reins at the donkey, and generally makes haste to depart. 

This is truly a good move on his part, as eleven more swans begin making contributions to the ruckus soon after. 

*** 

The seven short people carrying battle-axes are no longer standing in the forest clearing, but at the entrance to a cave, which might or might not be a mine-shaft. The one with the biggest axe looks extremely annoyed. The shortest one, who might be wearing something pink under their leather armor (but isn't telling), glares defiantly at all the rest of them and holds tight to the bundle in his or her arms. 

Big Battle-Axe growls, "What'd you do that for?" 

Shorty snaps back, "It looked like it was about to start crying. How was I supposed to know we weren't sticking around?" 

Big Battle-Axe says, off-handedly, though in a tone of voice that asks `are you really that stupid or are you just pretending to be?' in foot-high caps, "It's the first rule of getting sucked in by a temporo-spatial anomaly: never pick up anything you wouldn't want to take with you. A Dwarf might think this had never happened to you before, or something." 

Shorty shrugs, "Well, it hadn't, so they'd be right." 

Just then the fabric wrapped around the bundle shifts, revealing a baby with a tuft of red hair on top of its head. Then it smiles - and the whole group, well, melts. 

Then they turn as one and walk into the cave. This isn't anything anybody from aboveground needs a part in. 

*** 

The princess occupying the throne room today is, in fact, a princess. Nobody in the castle knows this, however, since, when she sought shelter in the kitchens from the storm that swept through last night, she looked like nothing so much as a drowned haystack - and, after she'd dried out a bit, she took in the state of the various fireplaces, and started sweeping them out at once. This morning, she got promoted from `char-girl' to `princess' when the other actual princess decided to test out `frog' as a lifestyle. 

Due to the suitably modest nature of her dress, nobody in the castle has had occasion to notice the remarkable number of bruises she acquired from sleeping slumped against a stone wall whilst seated on a stone floor. 

*** 

The man with the donkey-cart leaves the castle in such a headlong rush that he has no attention to spare to see what's right in front of him. As a result, he almost runs over the cat sitting in the middle of the bridge. Then the cat speaks. 

(The donkey did notice the cat and was already slowing their flight. The cat's lucky like that.) 

The man is somewhat surprised not to go flying when he comes to a sudden stop, but he gets over that soon enough and starts right in again with the yelling (he's not had a terribly good day), "No, no, no, no, no! I do not have time for talking cats - I already have a sleeping-or-dead (and-let's-hope-for-sleeping) girl in a glass box in my life -." 

The cat cuts him off, mid-rant, saying casually but firmly, "No, you haven't. Or, well, I don't see any evidence of her." 

The man sputters (again), "Are you blind? She's - ," he'd been turning around in his seat to better demonstrate just where she was, but when he gets a good look at the back of the cart he freezes with his mouth hanging open. 

And the cat says, smoothly, "Exactly. No evidence of any sort of a girl in a glass box, sleeping, dead, or otherwise." 

*** 

A man walks into a bar - and does in fact say `ouch'. He stubbed a toe on . . . something. He's not exactly sure what. It isn't exactly well-lit in there. 

(And, actually, it's more a tavern than a bar. Or possibly a pub. Which have bars, yes - and yet aren't them. Right. Carrying on.) 

Back to the man who walked into the bar-tavern-pub. Three men sitting around a table toward the back wave him over - and he goes to join them. They all of them have badly-disguised crown-head and are dressed in pre-worn tunics and hose and boots their valets have been attempting to throw out ever since they got comfortable (well, would have been, if they were princes, though it's a good guess that they are) - an attempt at blending in. 

*** 

In another - oh, let's go with tavern - in another part of town, another group of people is gathering. These ones have more of a fondness for black than the probable princes, but no less of a desire to not be noticed. Fortunately for them, they're slightly more likely to actually get their way on that last point, as their very clothing proclaims their proficiency with magic or potions or poison. 

*** 

The group with the pick-axes are back in the clearing - and they're looking a wee bit confused. They blink and pinch themselves and open their mouths as though to speak - only to shut them again. 

One of them finally says, hopefully, "Well, at least the baby's gone." 

"But she's still missing," one of his more pessimistic brothers replies. 

All of them nod: that about covers it, really. 

Nonetheless, they make a careful search of the clearing, just in case, then walk off down a narrow path partially-concealed by some low-hanging shrubbery, single-file. They don't sing. Even a little. 

*** 

"I wish the regular postman would come back," says a small bear to his mother, glumly studying an advertising circular arrived two weeks late. It's suggesting that he might like to take advantage of their excellent price on magic beans - which went off sale a week ago. 

"Quite right," his mother replies, brandishing a catalog, "I didn't need to know Mr. Wolf was looking into flannel nighties." 

"Mum!" shrieks the little bear, "my poor, innocent ears!" 

*** 

"Ella - Ella, please calm down. I'll fix it. I promise." The man behind the counter is looking exceptionally harried, an emotional state he seems likely to be stuck with for the foreseeable future, given the line winding out the door and down the street beyond. 

Ella is not appeased. She repeats, "Those. Were. My. Wedding. Invitations," punctuating the statement by shaking a key fob shaped like a glass slipper at him. 

The man winces, but otherwise stands firm, "I know they were, but they've already gone out for delivery. If you'd give me a list of who was supposed to receive them -" 

Ella cuts in, not at all appeased, "Oh, no - they've been delivered. Today I even received an R.S.V.P. from this family of pigs I've never heard of - who enquired about the structural integrity of the castle!" She has a singer's voice - and it carries. Further back in line, just outside the doors, a pig with a pink parcel pick-up slip winces. 

The man behind the counter turns away from her, looking pained, and yells, "Arthur!" His tone of voice suggests that he's just uttered every rude word ever invented, but the dark-haired, pale-skinned boy in the rumpled uniform who appears in response doesn't appear to have noticed. 

But Arthur most certainly has noticed Ella. 

*** 

The (probable) princes have been drinking. A very, very lot. But they've only just gotten to the whinging portion of the conversation. 

"Everybody said: go on a quest and you'll meet a girl. So I went on the quest and fought my way through the wall of brambles and climbed up to the highest room in the tallest tower - and what do I find? No girl. Not so much as a single one of her hairs. It's not right." 

All the other princes (and they clearly are princes) nod sympathetically. One of them almost moves a hand to pat bramble-boy on the arm, but he's not nearly drunk enough to actually think it's a good idea, so he signals for another round, instead. 

The prince to the right of bramble-boy sighs extravagantly. He says, "I wish people would tell me to go on quests. Mother makes me sit at home instead - so I have no choice but to meet all the princesses she thinks would be suitable for me to marry. I don't know why she can't see that I'll never choose any of them." 

None of the others are quite drunk enough to suggest that a surfeit of eligible princesses might not be something to cry about, but bramble-boy is certainly thinking it. 

The one sitting across from the mama's boy pipes up next, saying morosely, "Well, I'd actually found one I was interested in - not that she'd told me she was a princess, but I could tell. You always can." This pronouncement gets more nods, though the prince waves them aside, "So I'd been going to see her as often as I could - and then I heard she was really sick, maybe even near death, so I went to visit her, see what I could do to help, and, when I got there, she was gone and the guys she'd been keeping house for said they had no idea what had happened to her. I tell you, this happens to me every time." 

The fourth prince at the table, our original late arrival, just snorts and says, "You'll be singing a different tune if you ever actually have to get married. I mean, Ella's a lovely girl, but this wedding? This wedding has driven her absolutely round the bend." 

The new round of drinks arrives just then, which is a good thing, indeed, as it drowns any argument they might have been about to have in lovely, lovely alcohol. 

*** 

The group sitting around the table playing whist and drinking scrumpy includes a Wicked Stepmother, a Bad Fairy, an Evil Queen, and a Sorceress of Ill-Repute. They're having their usual Wednesday afternoon scrumpy-klatch. This also, of course, includes plenty of gossip. And boy do they have things to talk about this week. 

*** 

In a long, sunny attic room, eleven boys slowly awake. They are brothers, these boys, but they are not at all alike for the most part. In fact, the only things they have regularly had in common in recent years are their abode and a tendency to wear out their boot leather far more quickly than would be expected and wake feeling exhausted most mornings. This morning, they have one more thing in common: a feeling that something is different today. 

They're absolutely correct: there's a woman in their midst. Or, well, women, actually. Though they could be forgiven for being confused since one of them's lying there ensconced in a glass box. 

Once they notice this, there's rather a lot of clutching of sheets to chests and suchlike until they also notice that both women are sound asleep (or otherwise completely unable to notice the brothers' collective state of dishabille). Then they hurriedly get dressed with their backs to the women (they do have manners, after all). 

It's only once they're no longer naked that they proceed with any sort of investigation of their new roommates. 

*** 

The postman asks his replacement, "Arthur, you had Ella's wedding invitations for delivery - who did you deliver them to?" 

And Arthur says, decisively, "Nobody." 

The postman is incredulous, and sounds it, "Nobody?" 

Arthur nods and elaborates, "I didn't deliver any of them. I was going to start on them after lunch, but when I went to take them out of my bag they'd gone missing, so I delivered the rest of the stuff I had left and came back here. That's why I'm early." 

And that's it for the postman. He sits down on the stool behind the counter with a thump and says, feelingly, "Oh, dear. This is more of a problem than I thought." 

*** 

The cat and the angry man are sitting on the bank of the river, in the shade of a spreading tree. Food is being shared: bread and cheese and a plum or two taken from another nearby tree. There has been conversation, mostly pleasant. 

The cat ventures, somewhat cautiously, "Seems you have time for a talking cat, now." 

The man snorts and says, "I can spin straw into gold - what use could you possibly be to me?" 

And the cat replies, "I am clever - far cleverer than you, I expect. You had a single plan - though not a bad one. I shall give you five, even better." 

The man rejoins, ever so sarcastically, "And I'll make you rich, I suppose?" 

The cat licks a paw, daintily, and says, "It wouldn't hurt, of course, but really? I just want to be the power behind the throne. After all, who'd believe that a talking cat was actually good for anything . . . " 

*** 

The scullery maid who had the pleasure of playing princess the day before has quite a bit to do to whip the scullery back into the shape it had been in before suffering the ravages of a princess on a quest. The princess has, among other things, been `helpful' and reorganized everything. 

It is therefore quite some time before she notices the absence of one of the many sets of flatware that reside there. Also, several of the plates, a creamer and a sugar bowl, two or three bowls, and a lavishly decorated serving platter. 

She's about to make a proper search for them when she gets roped into helping relocate the swans - which have taken over the kitchen garden and set to energetically destroying the herbs and lettuces. By the time the swans have been settled on the heretofore unoccupied ornamental lake, she's forgotten all about the missing items. And what's more, it's time to help with supper. 

She notices again after supper, when she's putting away all the dishes and flatware and serving dishes the meal had required and checking to make sure everything else is in order. She decides she'll look for them again in the morning, however. It's been a plenty long enough day already, as far as she's concerned. 

*** 

The eleven brothers had decided that there was nothing they could do that morning but lock the door to their room behind them and hope for the best. 

For once, the best mostly comes through: the women haven't moved an inch when the brothers return. Of course, that means they're still there. Which they would've preferred not, all things being equal. Their lives are complicated enough as it is. 

It's a bit strange going to sleep with the extra people in the room (they're women!), but the brothers go to bed early, anyway, just like they always do. 

*** 

The postmaster hasn't seen anything like it for quite some time. Life has rolled along, pleasant and jolly, only occasionally marred by distress of any kind. But now - now, the very fabric of time and space is being disrupted. And he'd very much like to know why. 

There isn't actually anybody who knows the answer to that question just yet, but if he knew the right people (or frogs) to ask, he might be able to piece it together himself. Unfortunately for him, he doesn't. 

And the frog isn't interested in giving up his magic mirror. 

*** 

That evening the princes from the bar-pub-tavern can be found attending a ball (well, all except Henry - he's home dancing attendance on Ella). The venue is new to them: a nearby castle on an island, but they mostly don't do much aside from stand around holding up the walls and drinking punch. This does not show them to their best advantage, perhaps, but it does mean they have an excellent view of the two most interesting moments of the evening. 

*** 

In the woods where the mother bear and her son have their small house, there is also a much larger one, surrounded by extravagant gardens enclosed within high walls. There are tales told of its occupant, but nobody can confirm or deny the truth of them. 

Nobody had been able to, that is. This night, a woman traveling on horseback through the woods will stop to pick a particular rose for her son, whose pride is his rose garden. Her trespass will draw the owner of the house forth into the night, seeking redress - in the surprising form of her son's service as a gardener. 

*** 

Later that night, when the eleven brothers slip from their beds and through the trap door concealed beneath their rug, the mysterious women rise with them, though they do not wake. 

The thirteen of them slip through secret passages within the walls of the house and secret tunnels beneath it until they come to a lake with an island in the middle of it. There, twelve swans wait to carry them across the water to the island. Each of the eleven men seats himself upon the back of a swan; the women silently mount the last one together. 

The entire party glides across the lake in silence. When the brothers and the two silent women step ashore on the island, all the swans follow them, transforming as one into pale-haired, long-necked women in flowing white dresses trimmed with feathers. 

Each brother takes a swan-woman on his arm; the twelfth walks before them with the two silent women. They go like this, arm-in-arm, into the grand ballroom of the castle, where the couples dance beautifully together all through the night, the women and their escort taking things in turns. 

When the twelfth swan-woman kisses her silent partners at dawn the kiss has no effect on the dark-haired woman, but the other one comes suddenly awake, kissing her fervently back. 

*** 

The former frog princess falls asleep on her lily-pad and is woken by the sun. She's soaked with dew and exceptionally hungry, as she never did get the trick of catching flies (besides which, they're not very filling). 

She walks up through the ornamental gardens to the kitchen garden, stops at the well in the yard outside the kitchen to dip a bucketful of water and say good morning to the frog. She's only half successful at this, as the frog is still asleep. 

When she wanders into the kitchen, however, she's still barefoot (she hasn't quite managed the transition from frog princess to granddaughter), but carrying a bucket. 

*** 

When the frog wakes up, some time later, he finds his magic mirror has disappeared. He is not best pleased. He doesn't expect he'll ever come into the possession of one again - and things were just getting interesting! 

*** 

The princess who's just a granddaughter today is walking through the forest, carrying a bucket (yes, that bucket). She's changed her dress and put on boots and a cloak - and now she's going to see her grandmother. If she were a better sort of granddaughter, she would also be carrying cookies or a bottle of wine (her grandmother would particularly appreciate the wine). 

Her grandmother will certainly appreciate the puzzle the contents of the bucket represent, though, so the lack of wine will perhaps go unnoticed. Perhaps. Her grandmother is awfully fond of wine (though she's even more fond of scrumpy, of course). 

*** 

Only bramble-boy and the prince with eternal bad luck show up at the tavern the next day, but they have more than enough to talk about between the two of them. 

Not that they actually talk, at first - they spend a good hour staring morosely into their beer before either of them can work up the steam to let it all out. 

The unlucky one has been tracing patterns in a puddle of beer and showing no signs of talking when he suddenly says, "She was there last night. She was there - and she spent half the night dancing with one of that gaggle of sisters. She looked right through me every time I tried to catch her eye." He's never sounded anything but morose when he's been heard to speak, but he truly sounds terminally depressed when he adds, "I knew it was too good to be true." 

Bramble-boy tells him, "Well, it'll be a good job if we ever find another interested one again - they're all going off with each other, now. I mean, did you _see_ those two kissing there at the end?" 

*** 

The first words out of the princess-who's-just-a-granddaughter-today's grandmother's mouth are, "Oh, it's you - I don't suppose you brought me some ginger wine?" Which completely does in the theory that her lack of gift will go unnoticed. 

She doesn't let that slow her down, though. Just says, firmly, "I brought you a puzzle, instead, grandmama." 

Her grandmother snorts, elegantly, and says, "Don't call me `grandmama', child - but a puzzle, you say? Bring it over here." She pats an empty space on one of the worktables that line the walls of her workroom and pushes her hair back over her shoulders, revealing a generous expanse of pale cleavage framed by a black lace bodice. She has no need to roll up her sleeves; she hasn't any. She may like her robes cut low and high, but she's still a sorceress, and long, flowing sleeves get in the way. 

*** 

The sorceress sets her thaumatoscope aside and turns to sharply ask her granddaughter, "Who's been using a magic mirror as a wash bucket?" 

Her granddaughter looks at her like she's an apple short of a bushel, "A magic mirror? You wouldn't be able to wash much of anything in - " 

"Yes, yes, child - but this bucket you brought me is a magic mirror. And the only thing puzzling about it is how it got that way. I can see that all the ingredients to create one were present at one point, but what could possibly have brought it into contact with enough power to change its state?" 

The sorceress sits and ponders this for a while in silence. (Her granddaughter is also quiet, but she isn't considering the ways in which one can create a magic mirror - she's thinking she should just throw in the towel on the princess thing and become a prince.) She stops pondering and gets to her feet just as her granddaughter has decided this, however, so the princess-who's-just-a-granddaughter-today doesn't get a chance to think about it properly, just trail in the sorceress's wake as she gathers her cloak and bag and says, briskly, "Well, there's nothing for it but to take the mirror back to where you found it and see what we can find out - now, be careful with the bucket, child!" 

*** 

The frog is sitting in the shade of the well, half-asleep, when the sorceress strides into the courtyard, trailing her granddaughter. When he spots what the girl is carrying, he wakes right up. 

"You brought the mirror back!" 

"A talking frog, of course - and what do you know about this mirror, amphibian?" she asks, taking the bucket from her granddaughter and striding over. 

"It was just here, yesterday morning, when I woke up. But it kept acting funny." If the frog could have shrugged, he would have. He gives it his best shot, though, in the form of a full-body wiggle. 

"And of course it wasn't a mirror when _she_ was planning to do the dishes in it - so it became a mirror sometime before yesterday morning, but after the afternoon before that. Can you think of anything that happened that could have done this, frog?" 

"Not really - it rained all night, real hard, and there was a girl who came to the kitchen door to get in out of it, but . . . that's all." 

And the sorceress smiles and says, "Just a rainstorm, was it? Well, that's all it took, I expect - where there's a rainstorm there's often lightning, which, in this case, hit the bucket and alchemized the contents. Voila: magic mirror! Of course, it didn't work quite normally because the silverware was in there too, and I don't know that anybody's tried to create a mirror in a bucket of washing before. Still, if we take it out, the mirror ought to behave itself." 

*** 

Later, when her granddaughter is walking her to the castle gate, the sorceress asks, "And have you checked to make sure that frog isn't a prince, child?" 

Her granddaughter rolls her eyes to indicate just how stupid a question she thinks that is, but she sounds perfectly polite when she says, "Of course he is - but he likes being a frog far better. He says it's much less trouble this way." 

*** 

At the ball the next evening, the swan-woman and her princess dance together - and talk of how they might weave themselves a future. The brothers and the rest of the swan-maidens dance, too, but their conversation is far more desultory. 

Mail delivery goes mostly back to normal - though the postman never quite figures out what happened to make it go haywire in the first place. 

But then, the incidence of random temporo-spatial anomalies becomes rather less frequent and life continues on much as it had before for everyone else, as well. Though with a few twists to the tales the inhabitants of the realm had expected their lives to tell. 

The flatware and dishes that ended up soaking in a magic mirror, however? They sneak off in the night to hide in the forest and figure out just how sentient household goods are meant to make their way in the world. 

 


End file.
